The Starving Writer.

I turned in my two week's notice. 

There was no ceremony. No tears. No "why?" You don't get that in the basement of a corporate call center where the most you can contribute to a "team" is a dish for potlucks (which never came often enough). I knew long ago I wasn't meant to be long there, not with self-entitled car buyers bitching in my ear about how the ride of his vehicle made his dog sick, or that someone didn't tell her she could go to a restaurant and eat while she waited (talk about helpless). I couldn't forgive a superior for humiliating me during a team meeting and only apologizing in private. I couldn't stand the blatant sexism, where I was unable to wear a pencil skirt well within the company's length guidelines, because less able-bodied women couldn't stomach the fact that their ankles couldn't fit in heels. I hated the constant, undying rumors that I was having sex with so-and-so when the most I shared with him was fat calories from an appetizer. 

But I digress. 

The company sucked my soul and it worsened the past months, when I went through a soul-crushing breakup from the man I was smitten with since high school, failing grades, false starts, bills, and deteriorating friendships. "A job is a job" as we all know. Look closely. You have one life, ONE, and maybe you have children and education and dreams. 

Do you really want to spend it listening to someone bitch in your ear and call you an idiot without ever seeing your face? 

No. Last week was my epiphany. I will not stand to let life pass me by for minimum wage. I will figure out how to live, perhaps poorly, but doing something I love RIGHT NOW. The pen and paper. My own time. What I have always loved about myself was how resourceful I was. Now I just needed to learn independence and the worth of self. 

Step One: Let it go. Cue The Frozen soundtrack. Really. Let it go. That thing that makes you unhappy? Significant other, relative, TV show, job, etc. Release that piece of shit butterfly out into the shitty little sky ... or at least, prepare to. People ask me what I'm going to do for money. I look at my pen. I have a pretty good idea. 

Step Two: Begin. Live your life like never before and find the inspiration you need to fuel this craving. Change an aspect in your life that you never thought you would face. I went to Bonnaroo thinking it would be a huge drug/fuck/hippy fest but I realized, there were so many different people around me. Why was I abandoning my writing to focus on a guy who was going to stay in the same town for the rest of his life? Why did these people look at me, people who had never even known me, and smile when he rarely did? Why would I spend my life underneath fluorescent lights and a man screaming through my headset about how he didn't read paperwork, when I could be under the sun somewhere far and quiet or hunting bugs with my daughter? My fuel isn't here. It's everywhere else.

Step Three: I will write until it hurts. I'll write so terribly, whatever is on my mind, and like the biologist I'm studying to be, I will dissect the good parts and, like the tailor with stories that I am, I will put them together and make a symphony. 

Chicago has been quarantined for unknown reasons for two years. Amal, an aspiring ballerina near the prime of her career when the quarantine started, becomes the scourge of Chicago as she begins killing. She spares law student Wyatt, who promises to help her find a way out of Chicago. However, Chicago's greatest residents will do anything to stop them from leaving. 

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Amal carefully primped her hair, her gaze drifting lazily through the mirror and past her reflection.

                “Don’t ignore me,” Wyatt demanded though his voice had the strength of cobwebs. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re shutting down so you won’t have to answer. You will answer me.”

                She didn’t seem to hear him.

                “You’re the one who is killing all these people with that .. that … You’re a ballerina with a baseball bat just bashing people’s heads whenever they’re in the wrong place! Chicago is already fucked up! You are fucked up!” he shrieked at her reflection. “He didn’t deserve to die! He fucking instructed me, for fuck’s sake!”

                Amal calmly uncapped her lipstick and swept crimson across her mouth.

                “He was my professor!”

                “He was a murderer …” she murmured, finally catching his gaze through the grimy mirror. “I keep track of them all. He raped and murdered one woman near the Red Line as his … students looked on.” Her tone was sardonic. “Doesn’t quarantine do awful things to human nature?”

                “So is that what you do every night? After you’re done dancing for ghosts in this theatre you go out and play God?” he snarled. “I don’t believe you. Not only are you walking Chicago in your fucking Nutcracker getup but you’re actually cracking nuts. Unbefuckinglievable. You can’t get the evil out of here when you’re the one that’s evil!”

                She turned to him. “You didn’t complain when I killed those thieves and all they wanted was your coat and shoes.”

                “They were going to kill me too. That’s different.”

                “Of course.”

                “Fuck you, Amal. You’re crazy. You’ll never set foot in Europe with your tutu and glitter, you’ll never be prima ballerina or whatever, and you’ll never get out.” He was sweating although the theatre was cold.

                Amal stood and laughed coldly. “You’ll never be able to defend killers like me, Mr. Law School. Not without me. Just in case you didn’t notice, you have to be protected by me.” She took her bat; Wyatt immediately scrambled backward. She laughed again and wiped the bat with a baby wipe, where blood came off as dark as rust. “You’re free to leave and survive on your own again. I never wanted you following me.”

                “Whatever is happening in the world outside Chicago, we’ll both never know and maybe it’s for the best,” he said painfully. “To quarantine is to protect, right?”

                “I’m certainly not going to quarantine you. Go brave Donna Juliet’s thugs or the Faceless Dancer. I’m going to kill every night for as long as I stay here. When I finally get out, I’ll keep killing anyone who gets in my way,” she growled and threw the wipe at him. She set the bat onto the vanity and swept past him, to the stage where the lights shone glaring and hot, washing the empty seats into non-existence.

Ezra's one and only POV. Why did I include this? Well, other scenes just revealed too much of the story but this is also a pivotal moment for Ezra, who is about to explain his devotion for a dead woman (Felix's mother) and the strange phenomenon that happened the night his entire family was killed. 

This is a rough draft and not the entire chapter, of course. Things will likely change. This is also not the voice of the story but the inside of a character who is probably bigger than the main character himself. He will talk and describe things a lot differently than Felix. Okay, this is just to show you I'm competent at writing!

And for a little background information, it's an alternate society (or world) in the early 1900's, where the country has a mix of Russian and English terms and style, and have been at war with another country for several decades over a province called Brishkow. I would consider this a science fiction/fantasy genre. Unfortunately in my effed up world the rhinos are extinct and ivory is a huge deal. ; )

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“Can you tell me what happened that night?” I ask him.

                “I suppose I owe you an explanation,” says Ezra quietly but I can hear his discomfort. “It would be better hearing it from me than Raphael. But where do I start explaining how my family was massacred?” It is a final plea disguised as sarcasm. I study the frost in his eyes and imagine taking the color from them, layer by layer, until he is nothing but soul and vulnerability. It helps to keep me from being intimidated by his evocative stare.

                “You owe me,” I echo, frigid.

                He rips his eyes away from me, cowed. “Fine,” he says, swiping the liquor bottle away from me. “I’ll need a drink for this.”

    Ezra

                  It was the most ornate and exquisite party my parents threw in years. I remember how the ballroom gleamed with gold and crystal. There was the tantalizing richness of gravy and steaming meats, pretty cakes with delicate sugar filigree, a massive ice palace dripping with colored liquors that made the grown-ups stupid but more agreeable. An orchestra blazed in a fury of rich mahogany wood and silver string, sweeping my heart along with their waltz. I wanted to dance and show the grown-ups how much I learned from my lessons, so one day I would be a noble like Father.

                Mother shrieked, avoiding my hands. The rubies at her neck sparkled as red as blood. “Someone clean him up! He looks like he has been fishing in the soup! Oh, Pippa, can you take him over there where he won’t muss anyone’s clothes while you clean him?”

                The famous ballerina Pippa was divine in silver and light blue, like a virgin nymph who guarded the Two Tears of Brishkow. She took me near the draperies, wiped my little hands clean and held my fingers among her slender, pale ones, fingers that reminded me of birch trees. “Sweet little Ezra,” she giggled, “always getting into some mischief.”

                “The spoon is too big for me to hold.”

                “You were holding the wrong one. I laughed so hard that I couldn’t breathe!” She rubbed the tip of her dainty nose against mine. “Look at those freckles," she sighed. "One day you will not be five anymore and you will be big enough for the serving spoon.”

                “I want to be with you and Annalisa and Victoria the whole night!” Actually I just wanted her. One day she would be my wife and bake me a delicious cake with ten layers and chocolate filling and read books about knights and wicked lands. “I am bored!” I stomped my foot for good measure.

               Her smile was promising. “We will be here the entire night, handsome prince.” She kissed my cheek. “Will you dance with me later?”

                Pippa was the tangible flesh of benevolence with thick auburn hair that deserved a crown as beautiful as her. I didn’t want her to leave to the Capitol with the girls. She needed to stay in Brishkow and replace the mother that found me too bothersome. She would take me aside and I would watch her practice standing on her toes and spin and we would walk through the gardens and she would tell me things about life.

                “The sun goes through the leaves and there is a chemical process called photosynthesis … the plant makes its own sugars and uses it to grow and make seeds. This seed here has a tiny plant right at the tip. Do you see it?” She placed the halved seed in my hand. “It’s the tiniest plant in the world right now but one day this might be a tree that is hundreds of years old.”

                She would show me plants and dirt and stars and deer and rain; she would tell me about science, her true love. She danced for royalty and moved the audience to tears with her grace but I could see the blaze in her eyes.

“There are things much greater than Brishkow and The Song of the Kingdom,” she whispered to me after showing me something creamy white, a forbidden piece called ivory that came from a horn of some great armored creature. “Science will tell you all about the world.”

                Science would tell me about the world much later, as science had a lesson to teach me in death.

Science and Pippa would tell me how the glass shivered from sound waves when the explosions detonated and set the walls afire in a terrible splendor; the acrid smell of gunpowder and burning paint. They would tell me in how many minutes a man could die from losing blood when he is shot through the stomach. I would know the color of the mind inside heads.

Science would tell me a lot about how death came to the night but it would never tell me why old men groaned for their mothers at the dark hour or why the shadows lined my cousins against the wall, guns pointed, shouting in a thick language before the children dropped like marionettes, twitching in scarlet pools.

Oh, I'm in such an awful, murderous, vengeful mood, mixed with a little deceit and dark planning. I know it might not exactly be a book but I do want to point out the magnificent writing and storytelling of 'Breaking Bad', where I find myself identifying with the character Walt and the themes that occur throughout the show. Good actors do great with good writing and that's how the story remained so compelling throughout the series. 

WARNING: Spoilers

1) There is no 'convenience' writing. Walt doesn't suddenly have ricin available whenever he needs it. Jesse doesn't leave his group and never return to it. Hank doesn't magically find out that Walt is Heisenberg. Almost every death on there had a long-lasting effect.

Think about doing "convenience writing" with a story. The Sorting Hat wasn't simply an odd part of the wizarding world - it held the sword, which Neville used several books later to kill Voldemort. It's not like anything or information "appears" when it's needed. It is introduced subtly, to where you almost might not notice it, and when the object or situation does come into play, the story is more believable. 

2) Motifs. I loved it. The glass eye of the teddy bear, from someone who died because Walt's "butterfly effect". The ricin, a symbol of revenge and treachery. You might not have noticed it but COLOR - green for greed, envy; blue and grey for cold; red for violence and blood (look these all up!), the fly. Jesse's "dog" - Ok, the point of all this:

Good writing needs motifs, something to bind the story together. In The Oresteia there are constant references to motherhood, birth, fertility, and blood, nets, lions. Darkness (or romance or whatever) can begin from the very first sentence as long as your motif is there. In my manuscript of The Ring of Lazarus, Felix becomes fearful of the smell of flowers (death) and Ezra is obsessed with circles (immortality, science, Pippa).

3) Strong dialogue. "I am the one who knocks." "I win." Simple sentences but Jesus, they gave me chills. It would have had the same effect on me if I was reading it from a novel: Walt's voice lowered as his eyes held Skyler like a tourniquet. "I am the one who knocks."

Or maybe Jesse's rambling and slang, which may have sounded like they didn't have meaning. Thing is, dialogue must have meaning and there was always some meaning in the conversation, whether to show naivety or motif or intention. Jesse on Hank in the hospital - it's something I would have said, I think.  "He'll see me when he wakes up in the morning and when he crawls to sleep in whatever rathole left for him, after I shred his house down. I will hunt his crusty àss, forever, until the day he sticks a gun up his mouth and pulls the trigger, just to get me out of his head. That's what happens next."

4) Theme. Fall from grace. When will you have enough before you are satisfied? Is the reward worth the loss? These were questions and themes that followed Walt throughout the show. Each character had powerful turmoil that made me wonder, hate them, love them. Your characters and your story needs those questions that will have the reader wondering long after the words have ended. In Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause, I was almost destroyed by the less than ideal ending. But was Aiden truly good for Vivian? Does this mean stick to my own kind? Who knows. Have a powerful theme, avoid making it cliche, and kill your audience with it. 

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I'd write more but I have a couple kids driving me nuts. I keep moving from room to room in order to think but am being followed. /sigh. Please comment or message me on what I might have missed. Thing is, see the show and pay attention to how things are woven in. This is great storytelling that utilizes techniques that are in written works. 

I have a ton of them. So I'd like to list them, from the ones I'm working on to just ideas. Maybe even an excerpt later. You might notice that I love dystopian settings and murder. Well ... maybe I might have to get that checked out haha.

1) Series 1: This is made up of a trilogy, prequel, and sequel. After the disappearance of his mother and fiancee, Felix becomes involved in a dangerous friendship with the haunted Prince Ezra and bitter Dr. Ivankov and discovers a dark science that threatens not only their country but the concept of their humanity. 

2) Book 2 (maybe a series): On Amal's debut as the prima ballerina, Chicago is put under quarantine. Two years later she becomes the scourge of a dystopian society as a serial killer with a baseball bat. She spares law student Wyatt's life after he promises to help her get out. Unfortunately Chicago's greatest residents will do anything to keep them from leaving. 

3) Idea: A society where you are free to choose when you die and it is a great event. 

4) Idea: A girl attends a private school and accidentally stumbles upon a secret of a teacher and two students regarding a murder. 

4a) A college sophomore does an innocent investigation on a fraternity's hazing that goes wrong. 

5) Twyla is exiled from the pleasant shores of Florida to Goldblood with the rest of the Infected, where she must wait to succumb to her illness while trying to survive with people who do not accept her.

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She seriously is. I LOVE reading her blogs. I love her crazy books. The Gemma Doyle trilogy taught me about imperfect characters almost as much as Harry Potter did, plus what girl doesn't love Victorian boarding schools with magic? 

And beauty queens stuck on an island?

And someone with Mad Cow disease?

WTF YES.

I think we would ... scratch that, I think we SHOULD be in a writing group together and I would die if she gave me advice. Utterly die.